Boredom finally yielded something cool. One of our guys left to go get more equipment from my house. It was a relatively low attendance day, and he’d be gone for about 20 minutes, because he had to walk, and he told us to wait for him to come back to do the quest. With just six people, we were trying to think of something cool to do. Then it hit us: Amtgard Baseball!

You need:

At least 6 people

4 items to use as bases (we used shields)

A weapon for everyone, and full combos are even more fun.

A heavier than average spell ball. We used an entangle made from a duct taped sock, with a leather cover.

So you set up your standard baseball diamond, and divide up into even teams. We only had three people on each team, so one guy was the pitcher, and the other two guys stood between the bases. The more people you have, the bigger your baseball diamond should be. Now, I realize, it’s probably been a while since the last gym class for a lot of people, so I’m going to go over most of the mundane rules as well.

No passing other tea mates on the bases, I.E., You can’t run to third from first if your friend is still at second.

You can’t advance more than two bases during any play unless a ‘home run’ line is marked and someone hits the spellball past it.

When an ‘out’ is made, the runner, and the one who tagged him must fight to see who has the right to the base, using standard ditch rules. If the runner loses, an out is made, and the runner goes off. If the runner wins, the one who tagged him loses a life, and the runner stays on the base.

To make an ‘out’ you may either tag the runner with the ball, throw it at him, or touch the base he’s running to, if he absolutely must touch that base, example: if you’re running from second to third, and there’s no one on first running to second, and an opposing player tags third, the player may run back to second with no penalty.

Unlike Mundane base ball, strikes or fouls are not counted against a player. The ball is thrown until the batter hits a fair ball.

A foul is any ball that flies outside the angle from home to first, or home to third. Also, a foul includes contact with the ball that does not travel forward at least halfway to the pitcher.

All players have three lives. Any shattered player is out of the game.

Three outs and the batting team takes the field.

If a player fights for a base, takes a limb shot, but wins, he may use that limb in running to the next base. However, if he must fight again for the next base, he must fight as though he had a hit to that limb.

You bat with the same combo you fight with. You may not use a red two-handed sword to bat, and then switch to florentine short-swords. You also may not use a shield to strike the ball.

Now that the exhaustive and slightly confusing set of rules is complete, I’ll go over our experience with it. If the bases are further apart, more fights take place. Red weapons are the best to use to bat. The guy who used one hit a home run every time. It’s not a really fast paced game, unless you have people who are good at mundane baseball. Since it’s hard to send a ball flying with a lighter sword, the pitcher seems to do most of the running. Over all, we all felt it was the most fun twenty minutes of the day.